


Day 10: Scrooge

by ConsultingPurplePants



Series: 25 Days of Fic-Mas (originally posted to tumblr) [10]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief mention of drugs, M/M, Organic Chemistry, This is why I took it for two years obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-06 00:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5396765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsultingPurplePants/pseuds/ConsultingPurplePants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock hates Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 10: Scrooge

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so I was a little liberal with the Scrooge thing bite me

Sherlock angrily cuts away another piece of lung, barely feeling any satisfaction as it deflates beneath his fingers with an odd sort of squelching (John’s word) sound. No matter how captivating these lungs are (no signs of smoke inhalation in the upper respiratory tract, but the lungs are full of them, the smoke had to have gotten in there somehow, _focus_ ), he can’t get John’s hurt expression out of his head.

John had asked him to help decorate the flat for Christmas, despite Sherlock knowing _full well_ that John knows he hates Christmas. Full stop. Sherlock had never had a good Christmas (even the one he had had with John, there was a date), and all of the ones leading up to that had been varying degrees of crushing childhood disappointment (and of course the deleted period during which he was high out of his mind, but he doesn’t like to talk about that). Then there were the two he had spent away from John, both of them spent locked up, both of them spent in his mind palace trying to apologize to John.

And then, there was last year’s Christmas. Last year’s Christmas had signed the death warrant on whatever love for Christmas Sherlock could possibly have left. The only man he had ever loved had married an assassin, and that assassin had shot him in the heart (both literally and figuratively). Then, he had nearly been sent to his death in Serbia, the one place he had hoped never to set foot in again. Oh yes, that Christmas had been the worst Christmas of his life, no matter how brave a face he had put up.

John, however, has always had wonderful Christmases; Sherlock can tell by how he perks up around early December, looking eagerly in shop windows and smiling at decorations. John’s family hadn’t been particularly well off, but they had clearly done their best around the holidays because anyone with the slightest observational skills can see the happy holiday memories written all over John Watson’s face.

So of course, his response to John’s perfectly reasonable _Wanna help me decorate the flat, love? It’s Christmas tomorrow, could be fun_ had been a quiet, dangerous whisper of _I thought you knew me, John_ before he had whirled around and slammed out of the flat, feeling utterly betrayed. He had caught a quick glimpse of John’s broken expression, had a moment to regret his decision with everything he had, before he had shut the door and run to Bart’s.

Sherlock groans, nearly putting his face in his hands before he remembers that they’re covered in bits of inflamed lung (but how _did_ the smoke inhalation not damage the upper respiratory tract?). John loves Christmas, and Sherlock is about to ruin it for him. Ever since they’d (finally) declared their love for each other six months ago, Sherlock had been waiting for the one thing he would do that would push John away. If it wasn’t exploding organs in the kitchen, it would be the acid stains on John’s favourite jumper, or the time he’d soaked one of John’s medical textbooks in black ink (for a case!). None of those had done it, but this? This could finally be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Sherlock’s not sure why he came to the lab; he knows he wasn’t expecting Molly’s help, because she’d left within minutes of him throwing the first blood clots around. The lungs aren’t giving him the answer he needs, either, and it’s starting to look like the only option he has left is to go home and face John. He’d known it would have to end sometime, he was just hoping it wouldn’t be quite so soon.

***

Sherlock finally makes it back to the flat around two o’clock in the morning (Christmas day, this one will be the worst); inflamed lung is apparently harder to clean up than it looks. The only good thing that has come out of those lungs is that John has probably gone to bed, and Sherlock can pretend John still loves him for a few more hours before he faces him in the morning. He takes a deep breath before pushing himself up the stairs, his face tingling with the force required to keep the tears at bay. When he reaches the top, his heart sinks right through the floor.

There’s a light on. John is awake. He won’t be waiting until morning for the inevitable to happen, because John is going to ask him to leave right now. This was his fault, so John can keep the flat, and he’ll ask Mycroft to find him another one. No flatmate this time, though. He can’t stand the thought of waking up in a flat inhabited by someone who isn’t John.

He reluctantly pushes open the door to the sitting room, and the sight before him twists the knife even further in his chest. John is asleep in his armchair, head thrown back over the headrest, snoring softly. He looks perfect, and Sherlock can’t bear the thought of leaving this behind. The tears threaten to overflow again, and as Sherlock shakes his head to force them back he realizes the light isn’t coming from the usual lamps in the sitting room. He looks up, taking in his surroundings properly for the first time. John has decorated the flat alone (the hurt expression as Sherlock fled gives him another stab of guilt), but he hasn’t decorated it for himself. He has decorated it for Sherlock.

Sherlock has no idea where he got them from, but rather than mistletoe, there is a lit-up bond-line formula of dopamine (attraction, his brain helpfully supplies) hanging over the sitting room door. The tree is beautifully lit by chains of garlands which are, upon closer inspection, the bond-line formulas for oxytocin and vasopressin (John loves him) (still). The whole flat is decorated with the neurochemistry of their love for each other, and Sherlock’s heart feels like it’s going to explode.

As he steps towards the tree, an awed expression on his face, a floorboard creaks rather loudly. He stops, startled, and is about to keep walking when he hears a soft snuffle behind him. He turns around to see John stretching while looking at him with a soft smile.

“You came back,” he says quietly, his voice a little hoarse from sleep.

Sherlock doesn’t know what to say. He should probably start with an apology (who would have thought this day would come), but John cuts him off before he can open his mouth.

“I know you hate Christmas, and I realize part of that is my fault. Last year was probably the worst Christmas you’ve ever had; I know it was mine. And then I thought... Since we finally got around to telling each other how we feel, I should give you one good Christmas. Hopefully more than one, but I have to start somewhere, right?” He waves his arm around a bit. “So I did this: Christmas, graduate-chemist style!”

Sherlock’s mouth is doing something odd where it opens and closes several times but no words come out (the transport is getting out of control). He looks around the sitting room again, basking in John’s love for him, then realizes he has yet to apologize.

“John, what I did before... I’m sorry. I know you love Christmas, I shouldn’t have stormed out like that.” His chin starts to wobble a bit again, and he tries frantically to bend it to his will.

John smiles his soft smile again, and puts out his arms. “Come here, Sherlock.”

Sherlock practically falls over himself trying to get across the sitting room before crushing John to himself in a hug.

“I love you, John, I’m so sorry,” he finally manages to mumble into John’s neck.

“I love you too, Sherlock. So much.”

They stay like that, huddled together in the sitting room, not speaking for what seems like an eternity, before Sherlock whispers into John’s hair.

“John?”

“Yes, love?”

“Maybe Christmas won’t be so bad this year.”

John laughs, and it’s the most perfect thing Sherlock has ever heard. He lets himself be led by the hand across the sitting room until they’re both standing under the dopamine.

“Happy Christmas, Sherlock.”


End file.
